


Good Memories

by Madiedoodle



Series: The Good and the Bad [3]
Category: Avengers, Captain America, Marvel
Genre: Cute, M/M, Pietro isnt dead and you cant tell me otherwise, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-04-30 18:55:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5175944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madiedoodle/pseuds/Madiedoodle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is tiny again, and the Avengers are afraid what that's going to do to Bucky</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another Tumblr prompt! I really liked this one, it was cute!

Tony shrieked when he walked into the room, and Steve would have laughed if he wasn’t so   
angry about the whole thing. And with Tony’s undignified shriek the other Avengers came rushing into the room, and Steve went from angry to frustrated and embarassed as everyone crowded around him. Natasha’s look of concerned amusement was shown through her single raised eyebrow, while Barton was trying to hide his guffaws of laughter by polishing his bow. Sam looked ready to spring into EMT action, if only there was something to be doing, while Bruce and Tony looked like they wanted to immediately drag Steve into the lab for testing. Thor, Wanda, and Vision were the only people acting like nothing was wrong, and Steve would have been grateful for that if it wasn’t for the fact that they weren’t helping him escape either. 

Bucky was the only one who wasn’t there, a contributing cause to Steve’s extreme grumpiness, but the main cause was the fact that he was five feet tall and wheezing, a situation he hadn’t been in in years. Looking up at even Tony was a something he despised, the shock of being back in his pre-serum body only escalating with the tilting change in perspective. He huffed angrily, a feat for him considering how poorly his lungs were working, and stormed off into his room, waving off the other Avengers and their concerned looks.

***********************************************************************************************************

Once Steve was in his own room in the tower, chaos took hold amongst the other Avengers. It was Clint who spoke first.

“I hadn’t realized he was so tiny, before.” he said, snickering, and Natasha slapped him in the chest. 

“Our Captain is no different now than he was before, simply, tinier. There is nothing wrong with that.” Thor said sagely, and Bruce shook his head. 

“There is something wrong with that. He can’t be out in the field in that condition. We’ve just lost Captain America.” he said, and Tony rolled his eyes. 

“It’ll be a publicity nightmare, sure, but he can just be the team mascot or something. We can put his boyfriend in the Cap Suite and there ya go, Captain America.” he said, and everyone fell silent at the mention of Bucky.

“Barnes is gonna flip.” Sam said, and Natasha nodded, eyebrows furrowing in thought. 

“What if this triggers another episode of crazies or something? He hasn’t had one of those in a while, I finally got a new couch!” Tony said, and Bruce shot him a look telling him to shut up, a look that he ignored as always. “Ohhhhh what about their relationship? I mean, I don’t know about all of you but I think going from Adonis to nerdy little asthmatic would be a bit of a downgrade in a relationship.” he said, and everyone gave him an angry but pondering look.

“Bucky knew Steve long before he was an ‘Adonis’, as you say.” Thor pointed out, but Tony shook his head, waving around his bag of Doritos in emphasis.

“But were they TOGETHER?” he asked, and everyone looked around at eachother, shrugging as none of them knew the answer. The two acted like they had been together forever, but who knows, things had been very different for them in the future. It was a tense few minutes as they all thought of the implications of the current situation, without a functioning Steve Rogers and with the possibility of a break up looming on the horizon. 

“We’re not giving capsicle number two a lot of credit here. I don’t think he would dump Steve just because he got smaller.” Clint finally said. He liked Bucky, in a distant sort of way. They’d both been hurt, and though it was very different, there were likely enough similarities for them to be kindred spirits in a way. And Clint didn’t think that Bucky would just drop his ‘best guy’ for something like getting his super soldier serum taken away in a mysterious set of events that they still were unsure of. 

“When is Barnes getting back, anyways?” Tony asked, and everyone but Natasha shrugged. 

“He said he would be back soon, but that could be in a couple of hours or in a couple of weeks. Steve would know exactly when.” she said with a shrug, and they groaned, the thought of dealing with the tiny and angry version of Steve for a week without Bucky was unappealing to all of them. But with no way of alerting Bucky, they set out to wait, however long that would be. 

*******************************************************************************************************

For once, luck held with them and Bucky was only gone a little over a day, with no missions in between taking any of the Avengers out of the Tower. They had known that if there had been a crisis, Steve would have insisted on coming, which would have been a disaster of epic proportions. 

As he entered the tower, Bucky knew something was wrong immediately, and the tense air in the room was stiffling as they all stared at him, with various degrees of discreetness. He set his things down and looked around the room, waiting for him to cave and tell him what had happened. 

When no information was forthcoming, he finally asked. “Where is Steve?” he said, and Natasha nodded towards the part of the Tower where he and Steve dwelled. Bucky tried hard not to roll his eyes at her lack of helpfulness and made his way towards the rooms. 

If he had been dying Bucky was sure someone would have told him the second he was within comms range, so Bucky didn’t know what he had expected when he opened the door. A very tiny, very angry Steve hadn’t been on that list, and he blinked a couple of times as if trying to make out what he was seeing.  
Steve hadn’t seemed to notice him, sitting at the desk and gazing out the window, clenching and unclenching his fists like he always did when he was upset. It was a familiar scene, and Bucky smiled softly. It wasn’t often that he was flooded with good memories, but that moment was bringing back quiet nights and happy places, and it was a nice change. 

“What trouble have you gotten yourself into now, punk?” he asked, leaning against the doorway, and Steve whipped around to look at him, narrowing his eyes.

“I don’t wanna hear it Buck. It wasn’t even my fault, how was I supposed to know I was going up against the wicked witch of the west?” he asked, tone angry, and Bucky shook his head, laughing quietly though he knew Steve hated it. 

“Does Banner have any idea how to fix it?” Bucky asked, stretching out where he layed on the bed, and Steve shook his head.

“Wanda said she thinks it’ll wear off in a few days.” he said, and Bucky nodded, patting the bed next to him. Steve rolled his eyes but layed down anyways, curling up next to Bucky in a way that reminded him again of the pleasant parts of the past. It was nice, to have Steve small again, and Bucky set out to remind him. “The others think you’re going to break up with me because I’m no longer Captain America sized.” Steve said, mischief in his eyes, and Bucky laughed, pulling Steve closer. 

“I take it they don’t know that we were together before? I liked you way before you could bench press a tank.” Bucky said, and Steve laughed. 

“Even before I punched Hitler in the jaw a couple hundred times?” he asked teasingly.

“Even before that, punk. You had me after you punched Billy Henderson for messing with my sisters.” he said softly, and Steve shook his head fondly. 

“That was the first time we met.” he said, and Bucky nodded, kissing the top of Steve’s head. 

“Yeah it was, punk, yeah it was.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of fun is had on the part of the Steve and Bucky, and the others learn not to jump to conclusions

Having his arms wrapped around Steve so completely was familiar and yet novel in recent times, and Bucky had become more used to the bulkier version of Steve. But having Steve completely ensconced in his arms was something he enjoyed just as much as curling up with the well muscled version of Steve, so Bucky honestly couldn’t complain. He could complain though, when he could hear voices whispering at the door. 

“I don’t hear anything, no arguing, no nothing.” he heard Tony whisper, surprisingly quiet for such a usually loud man. He could practically hear Natasha roll her eyes before she replied.

“I’m telling you, Barnes isn’t gonna dump him.” she said, and Bucky assumed she had stalked off as he could hear the other rustling as they moved to fill the space she had left. 

“Plus did you see him, Cap is way too adorable in his mini form to dump, if Barnes is that blind then its a miracle he’s such a damn good sniper.” Clint said, and Bucky chuckled, fingers still carding through Steve’s hair as they listened to their friends. At least someone had faith in him. 

It was Steve tugging on his hair that distracted from his listening, and the mischievious glint in his eyes that made him forget entirely about the people outside the door. 

“It’s not permanent, I swear. I’ll be back to my manly, heroic form, please don’t leave me Bucky.” Steve suddenly said, winking at a startled Bucky. After a moment of confusion he realized what Steve’s plan was, and shook his head at the mischievious glint in Steve’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry, Steve, but I can’t be with you anymore. It’s too dangerous, you’re too small now. I could hurt you. It’s for the best if I leave and never return. It’s better this way.” he said, and he could hear the gasps of the other Avengers as they stood behind the door. He even heard Natasha’s footsteps, heavier than normal, as she came rushing back to listen in. 

“You can’t just leave me, Bucky. What about everything we have together?” Steve said, and Bucky had to bite back his laughter, the drama of it all making it difficult not to give the game away.

“We’ve had good times, Steve, I can’t deny that. But it’s for the best. You know it is. The other Avengers don’t like me anyways. I’ve been planning to break up with you for a long time now, But this has to be it. I’m too dangerous, and your friends don’t trust me. You’ll find someone so much better than me.’ Bucky said, and Steve rolled his eyes. This was an actual argument they had had before, but now it was much funnier than it had been then. 

“If anyone should leave, it’s me. I can’t be a hero if I’m small. You can be though. I’ll leave, they don’t need me anymore. You stay, be Captain America. You’ve always been more of a hero than I have. They won’t miss me anyways.” Steve said, and with that the others came bursting through the door, Tony and Clint wrapping Steve up in a hug as though preventing him from escaping. 

“You can’t leave, Rogers, who will I make old guy jokes about? It wouldn’t be the same without you here. And who would say silly things like ‘language’, even though he has the worst potty mouth this side of Chicago? And who would try out my new stuff? No one because no one else is indestructable. Well, Bruce is but we can’t do that for obvious reasons so we neeeeeeed you. ” Tony babbled, and Bucky had to clench his jaw to prevent himself from bursting out into laughter, Steve looked so uncomfortable with the situation.

“Pizza Dog will miss you and your frisbee throwing skills, and that means she’ll be cranky which means I will be cranky. I don’t wanna be cranky.” Clint whispered forlornly, and that was the final straw, Bucky dissolving into giggles on the floor, collapsing at Pietro’s feet in uncontrollable laughter. 

Everyone stopped in their tracks, the room dead silent except for Bucky’s laughter as everyone stared at him. Steve had joined him in laughing, and everyone slowly seemed to realize what was going on. 

“You should see your faces!” Steve said, clenching his sides as he laughed, making Bucky laugh even harder. 

“You seriously thought that we were breaking up? And that Steve was gonna leave?” Bucky said, wiping a tear from his eyes as everyone began to nod. “That’s hilarious. Truly. If anyone would be doing the breaking up it would be Steve. Even if I tried, he’s too stubborn to accept defeat.” he said, and Steve nodded sagely. 

“That was priceless. And that’s what you get for having such little faith in Bucky. And for listening at the door, of all things. You’re a bunch of geniuses, spies, and superheroes and the best you could do was listen at the door?” Steve said, and the rest of the Avengers looked around sheepishly. Natasha shook her head in the background, rolling her eyes and leaving the room. 

“We were worried that your new tiny form might trigger a flashback or something, and in your weakened state you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself. We were just looking out for you, obviously. And by listening at the door, we were close enough to be able to quickly rescue you. It was a tactical plan, obviously.” Clint said, despite Pietro’s gestures for him to keep quiet. 

“Yes, obviously. And all that whispering about who would break up with who was just another tactical move, testing your hearing.” Tony added, and Sam began to massage his temples as though fighting back a headache. 

“Just so we’re clear, you two were joking, right? I’m not gonna have to hunt down a tiny angry Steve as he tries to leave without any of us noticing? Or go on another search for the impossible to find long lost boyfriend? Because if I will have to I need to know now so I can cancel my date.” Sam said, and Steve chuckled, patting Sam on the arm.

“It was a joke, no one is breaking up or leaving. Go on your date.” Bucky said, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief before herding the others out of the room, Tony protesting the whole way.

“How rude of you geriatrics, I thought I finally had a shot at that fine piece of 1940’s super soldier and you’ve gotta tear it out of my grasp. Low blow Barnes, low blow.” he said, winking at Steve as Sam pushed him out of the room, and Bucky laughed again at the ridiculousness of it all. 

“In your dreams, tin man.” Bucky said, closing the door and turning back to Steve. “Well, that was fun.” he said, and Steve grinned patting the bed beside him, gesturing for Bucky to sit. 

“It was. But let’s never break up again, I don’t know if Clint could take it.” he said, head leaning on Bucky’s shoulder.

“It’s a deal, small fry. No break ups. Save Clint the struggle of having to decide if he wants to live with ma or pops in the divorce.”

“Obviously he would come with me, Pizza Dog loves me more and that is the deciding factor.” Steve said, and Bucky shook his head seriously.

“Noooo, he would come with me. Snipers gotta stick together. And Natasha would come with me too because Soviet assassins gotta stick together too. You get Sam and Tony and Bruce and Thor. And I get Pietro, Wanda, and Vision, because Pietro and Wanda go where Clint goes and Vision goes where Wanda goes. Obviously.” Bucky said matter of factly, and Steve shook his head. 

“Let’s not do this again. It was bad enough when we chose sides for the civil war, I don’t need any more split ups of the team. So lets agree that if we ever break up I will take you for everything you own and leave you out on the streets, the children are mine and by default the tower is mine since it’s Tony’s tower.” Steve said, and Bucky chuckled.

“I guess that means I’ve gotta stick with you, if I wanna keep living the good life.”

“Does that mean I’m you’re sugar daddy?” Steve said, and Bucky regarded him seriously.

“I think it means Tony is our sugar daddy, actually.” he replied, and Steve tackled him, as well as he could in his tiny form, shouting all the way.

“No how dare you put that image in my mind I don’t need that in my life howcouldyoudothistome” he shouted, face buried in Bucky’s shoulder. 

It was like old times, a bit different, but still nice. Friends all around, his tiny Steve in his arms. And though one of those arms was made of metal, and Steve was liable to suddenly grow a foot and become a giant super soldier, that moment was perfect. And so were all the moments after that. Because he had Steve, and life was good.


	3. Chapter 3

There were a couple of problems Steve had with being tiny again.

Problem 1: Losing an actual 12 inches in height was disorienting. He couldn’t reach ANYTHING. He didn’t know how Natasha did it, and it turned out he was even smaller than her, which wasn’t exactly surprising. But dwelling in a home made for people of average to extremely tall height was EXHAUSTING, and quite frustrating. When he was the only one in the tower he was left to eating everything out of the coffee mugs that dwelled on the lowest shelf in the cabinets.

He absolutely, positively REFUSED to use the step stool that Pepper had gifted him. He knew she had done it to make his life easier, but he also knew that Tony had JARVIS set to record him if he ever set foot on the thing. It wasn’t worth it, he didn’t need plates that badly. He didn’t need plates at all, he could perfectly well eat pancakes out of a bee shaped mug. The fact that all the normal mugs had been slowly traded out for strange mugs didn’t bother him either, as long as he never had to live the humiliation of being on the dreaded step stool.

There were some good things about being so small as well, mainly Bucky related things. Making Bucky get things out of the cabinets for him was almost worth it, because honestly Steve never got tired of watching his boyfriends muscles work as he moved, and reaching up gave Steve a particularly nice combination of back and shoulder muscles, as well as a perfect view of that glorious ass. Bucky never questioned the random need for plates or the wine glasses, and Steve knew that Bucky knew of his love to watching him, so it worked out rather well.

Problem 2: He couldn’t see for shit. He had almost forgotten how bad his eyesight used to be, but he was reminded of exactly how shit his vision was when he kept walking into stuff. He had had glasses way back when, but they had been cheap and not quite right for his eyes, and they’d always given him really bad head aches, so he had just learned to live with absolutely crap vision. But, he was no longer used to the world being blurry as hell, and it was leading to problems.

It took two weeks before he finally decided to get glasses, as everyone in the Tower had suggested the first time he had walked into a wall and then tripped over the couch(luckily Bucky had been there to catch him before he broke his head open on the coffee table). But Steve, stubborn, stubborn little Steve, refused to admit defeat. If he had survived most of his life without being able to see anything, he could survive until he was back to normal. He spent a week stumbling around the tower, no Bucky to guide him due to some sort of crazy overlord attempting to take over South America. It took that whole week for Steve to have the furniture layout memorized in a practical way for walking around(not in the usual way of ‘if I’m there and we are under attack what can I take cover behind’ kind of layout memorization). Luckily Tony had gone with Bucky, and wasn’t there to constantly move around the furniture to hinder the poor, mostly blind Steve.  
The second week went on as usual, Steve pouting about not being able to go on missions as the rest of his friends were in and out of the tower. Bucky and Tony had yet to come back from South America, and Steve would have worried if he didn’t know that Tony had wanted to visit his old nanny and her family. If Steve knew one thing about Tony(and he knew a lot of things about Tony) was that he spent as much time with the people he cared about as possible. And Steve couldn’t begrudge Tony the visit, but he was bored and he was lonely. Sure, Wanda and Pietro and Sam were around most of the time, and Natasha and Bruce and Clint came and went frequently, but Steve missed Bucky.

But once Bucky got back, that was when Steve realized why he had gotten glasses in the first place way back when. He couldn’t actually see his boyfriend, or anyone else for that matter, but god damn it he couldn’t see Bucky properly. It was a tragedy, a catastrophy, and something that he needed to fix immediately because he refused to be thus deprived of Bucky’s face(and ass) when it was right there. He turned around and marched to the elevator, leaving a mildly confused Bucky in the cold as he went down to where he knew Pepper was, and asked her where he could go about getting glasses.

Pepper, and God Bless Pepper Potts, goddess divine and true miracle worker, was a saintly person and had already gotten Steve glasses, pulling them from a drawer on her desk and handing them over to Steve. The move from blurry world to sudden clear vision made Steve blink for a while, but he shook his head and thanked Pepper, most lovely human being and Steve’s favorite person ever, for the gift of sight, and then double timed to the elevator.

He found Bucky sitting on the couch and staring at the elevator, and didn’t miss the wide grin when Bucky saw the glasses that now adorned Steve’s face. Steve rolled his eyes and then promptly snuggled under Bucky’s arm, pressed as close as possible and looking up at Bucky’s face. Yep, vision was worth the dorky glasses.

 

Problem 3: He couldn’t go on his morning runs. He loved his morning runs with Sam and Bucky, sometimes they were the only thing that kept him sane. But he couldn’t run, could barely go up the stairs without getting winded, and it was awful. Sam and Bucky would leave early in the morning, Bucky trying his best not to wake Steve because he knew how much Steve hated not being able to do things, but Steve was always awake when they left. He listened to their chatter as they left and always sighed because he should be there with them, making wise cracks and racing with Bucky to see who could lap him the most times(it was a tie so far but Steve was pretty sure Bucky had been cheating and using short cuts).

Sam and Bucky noticed Steve’s grumpiness, and so hatched a plan. A plan that started with Sam tragically ‘spraining’ his ankle on one of their morning runs, leading to them coming back to the Tower much earlier than usual. They found Steve curled up on the couch, watching Pride and Prejudice and eating some sort of gluten free crackers that Pepper had found for him(and again, God Bless Pepper because those things were delicious and didn’t make him feel like shit). It was a pitiful sight to behold, and Sam and Bucky were glad that they had decided to enact their new plan, as Steve mouthed the proposal as Mr. Darcy said each word, sniffling as he got to the ‘You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you’. Bucky shook his head, smiling lovingly. It was a ridiculous sight to behold.

He helped Sam hobble over to the couch, and there they all sat, watching Pride and Prejudice, Steve curled up under Bucky’s arm and Sam curled up against the arm of the couch, ‘injured’ leg propped up on the coffee table.

This became their routine for a long while after, the three of them and occasionally some of the other Avengers, gathered in the living room of Bucky and Steve’s floor. Sometimes it was board games, sometimes it was movies, and once it was even Mario Kart(that didn’t end well, and is an entirely separate ordeal for another day).

Bucky and Sam noticed that Steve was happier than he had probably ever been, and decided that this tradition must continue after Steve was no longer tiny. If they were honest, they were all happier than they had ever been, all of them together and being a family, eating breakfast and playing games and just being together. So really, Steve’s inability to go for morning runs wasn’t really a problem at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed writing this immensly! Please tell me what you think! If you have prompts you want me to write or other such ideas, feel free to tell me!


End file.
